


After Clouds, Sun

by greenripper (OracleGlass)



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-05
Updated: 2011-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:26:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OracleGlass/pseuds/greenripper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wreckage of the old, Sophie finds a way to build something new. Sophie/Eliot, with Parker/Hardison and Nate/Maggie in the background.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Clouds, Sun

She’s on the far side of the party, her hand delicately placed on the wrist of a man who claims to be a philanthropist, but who is actually responsible for falsifying records during the construction of a dam, an act that made him millions of dollars and wiped two villages in South America off the map. By the end of the evening, she’ll have enough information fed to Nate that they won’t even have to run a longer con to rid the world of this particular little turd – a few judicious phone calls will result in the man doing a long prison term for tax fraud. Not glamorous, but what did for Al Capone will do for this insect.

The rest of the team is on the floor as well, Parker in her usual waitress uniform, engaged in some recreational wallet-lifting, Hardison playing techno-nerd to the hilt, with three phones on his hip and duct tape on his glasses. Eliot is in his Professor Indiana Jones mode, looking rugged but scholarly, and is peering earnestly at a woman in a green dress who is waving her hands around as she talks to him. He’s got a half-smile on his face, and Sophie would bet her good Picasso that he’s really listening to the man standing behind them, who is trying to urgently whisper into a cell phone without attracting any attention.

Nate, meanwhile, is off in a corner with Maggie, the pair of them double-teaming a hapless minor functionary into spilling more than he realizes. Once Sophie’s gaze reaches them, standing close, their body language shouting volumes, her fingers tighten just a fraction on the fake philanthropist’s wrist. He takes it as encouragement, slipping his hand around her waist and attempting to tug her against him. She recovers herself, laughs and taps him on the cheek.

“Darling, really, you’re so bold, my reputation will be a shambles before the night is out. I must go powder my nose, so be a dear and fetch us more champagne?” She slips out of his grip with a flirtatious smile and he grins fatuously at her as she eases her way out of the room, turning down a corridor to find the bathroom. It’s a sultan’s dream of gold-veined green marble, immensely tacky, and, blessedly, empty. There’s a quiet stall at the end, and she presses her forehead against the cold stone and breathes deeply. Her hands are trembling.

**

From the corner of his eye (ah, hyper-vigilance) Eliot has seen Sophie flit out of the room. To anyone else she looks normal, but he recognizes the crease at the corner of her mouth and the small bulge of muscle indicating that her teeth are clenched.

If called on it, he would deny the fact that he spends a lot of time looking at Sophie’s face.

It’s no surprise what’s gotten to her. The entire crew knew instantly about her fling with Nate in San Lorenzo, thanks to Parker and her penchant for peeking in windows. And it was equally common knowledge that it had scared the ever-loving shit out of Nate, finally getting so close to Sophie in all her complex glory. Judging from the way they acted afterwards, there must have been some mutual agreement to forget it ever happened. In point of fact, thought Eliot, Nate turned tail and ran for the hills.

Let’s face it, the man was a purblind idiot in so many respects.

So it wasn’t a surprise that when Maggie turned back up on the scene, asking for help with a case of her own, that she and Nate had started to make tentative gestures towards rekindling something. Hell, if anybody could help Nate break free of the thorny thicket he had buried himself in, it was probably Maggie - stalwart, smart, and unwilling to put up with Nate’s bullshit. Something about her presence made him cut back on the boozing, which was an interesting psychological statement, although not one Eliot was prepared to fully decipher.

Sophie, though. It wasn’t fair at all to Sophie.

He excused himself from the woman he was speaking to, and followed Sophie out.

The door to the woman’s restroom hadn’t closed entirely by the time he got there, so he cautiously stuck his head inside, ready for a feminine yelp of anger. Thankfully, the place seemed to be deserted - that is, except for a noise that sounded a lot like an angrily muffled sob.

So. Go help Sophie? Or butt out? He teetered in the doorway, uncertain.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it, fuck it all to hell!” Each curse was punctuated with the slam of a fist against a hard surface. The rawness of her voice pulled him in. He tapped gingerly at the door to her stall.

“Soph?”

“Eliot?” Her voice was watery. “Go away.”

“Nope. Come on out of there and let’s talk.”

There was a long silence from the other side of the door.

“I don’t want to have to look anybody in the eye right now, Eliot. Can you leave me a little shred of dignity?”

“You haven’t lost any dignity, Sophie. Although I will, if you don’t hustle out of there before I get caught by someone in here. I don’t want to get hit with a purse.” He was rewarded with a reluctant chuckle from behind the stall door. It opened and a slightly disheveled Sophie peered out at him.

“You’re a beast. Take me somewhere and buy me a drink. Maybe several drinks. Maybe we should,” she growled, “go steal ourselves a bloody goddamned brewery.”

“I’m ignoring everything you said after, ‘buy me a drink.’” He grabbed her wrist and towed her out of the bathroom, narrowly avoiding a band of young women who gasped excitedly as the pair of them went past.

****

“Drinks” had been a misnomer; Sophie wound up nursing a Scotch and Eliot restricted himself to a couple of beers at the back table of the dive bar Eliot had led her to. Instead, they found themselves talking about anything and everything - places they had traveled to, their favorite restaurants, whether Parker and Hardison were officially dating or still doing some sort of pre-dating dance - but they skipped over talking about what had happened earlier that evening. Eliot finally broached the subject as cautiously as he could.

“You doing ok, Soph? I mean...in general?”

She grimaced, and took a sip of her drink.”Let’s face it, we all know what happened between me and Nate. Everyone was there to witness it. Maybe it’s just my hurt pride, I don’t really know. I’m tired of it still hurting me. I’m tired of feeling so many regrets. I’m glad the pair of them are finding something good together. I just wish I didn’t have to see it happen. I like what we have, our team, all of that. Nate’s doing better at the planning now that she’s got his head on straight. But I’m hurt that I wasn’t the one to inspire that in him.”

“In many ways, Nate Ford is a very stupid man.”

Sophie laughed in surprise and covered Eliot’s hand with her own. “That’s very sweet of you to say. Really, it’s nonsense. Why should he pick a woman who has made her life nothing but a series of lies? Instead, he’s chosen one of the most honest, straight-shooting, good people I’ve ever met. Every time Nate looked at me, he saw what he was scared of turning into. With Maggie he can shut all that away.”

She turned a penetrating gaze on Eliot, and tightened her grip on his hand “Now you, Mr. Spencer, you have your own issues. You’re like a character out of Greek tragedy mixed with a healthy dose of Batman. I’d be willing to bet you don’t believe you deserve any sort of happiness. Which is, you should excuse me, pure and utter bullshit.”

Eliot was now ramrod tense, glaring. “Whoa, now. I was trying to help you, Sophie, not have you dissect me so you can distract yourself from your own problems. Back off.”

Sophie sighed, and much to Eliot’s complete shock, she brought his hand up to her mouth and bit down on one of his knuckles, just enough to sting. He yelped, and tried to pull his hand away, but she bit him again, and he shuddered with a sudden wave of overwhelming lust that completely swamped him. Sophie was watching him with those big eyes of hers, her mouth still against his hand, knowing exactly what she was doing to him. In a liquid murmur, she said, “What would you do, Eliot, if I told you to take me home and fuck me senseless right this very minute? Would you tell me it was a bad idea? Would you tell me you didn’t deserve it? Would you tell me you don’t want me?” Very slowly, she touched the space between his fingers with the pointed tip of her tongue, and Eliot felt the hard-on of his life straining against the zipper of his best dress slacks. With a choked voice, he said, “Let go of my hand so I can pay the check. And then we’re leaving. Quickly.”

“I’m a step ahead of you, darling.” She released his hand, dipped quickly into her purse and fished out a fifty, tossing it on the table and then standing up to head for the door and the taxi stand nearby. He followed, blessing the fact that the bar was too cheap to install good lighting, so his obvious...state wasn’t too obvious.

They necked in the back of the cab like teenagers, all fumbling hands and muffled gasps and haste. At one point Eliot was aware of the cab driver’s eyes on them in the rearview, but it didn’t matter - nothing mattered but the smell of Sophie’s hair and the way her skin felt against his hands. It took a massive effort of will to get his billfold out of his back pocket to pay the cabbie, and the two of them staggered up the steps of his brownstone apartment like a pair of drunks.

The worn leather of his sofa was cool against Sophie’s naked back, but Eliot’s hands were hot as they roamed over her stomach and breasts. His hands were calloused, and their roughness added to the thrill as he captured her nipples, stroking them into hard peaks. He was so rock-solid, absolutely present, not hiding from her at all. She tugged hard, and his shirt buttons popped off and flew around the room, leaving her free to remove the shirt, then his undershirt with ease. She slid her hands down his back, nails scratching just enough to make Eliot swear and lean in to kiss her ferociously, bruising her lips and stifling her moans with his tongue.

His hand roamed lower, gliding over her belly and pushing against the damp cotton of her panties until he had shoved them to the side. He slid a finger down, pressing against her clit, stroking it until she gasped and bucked her hips upwards insistently. He slid a finger into her, then a second one, and found a steady, driving stroke that had her arced backwards on the sofa like a bow.

“God, fuck, Eliot...” her voice trailed off as she came, soundless, her body shaking, eyes squeezed shut. He watched her, a little awed that he had brought her to such a place, and held her tightly against him

. She lay still in his arms for a few long minutes, tucked up against him bonelessly. After a while, she turned her face up to kiss along his jawline, reaching his earlobe and nipping at it. He laughed and helped her busy fingers tug off his slacks and boxers in one tangled pile. They lay pressed up against each other, Sophie socketed neatly against his shoulder and hip. They kissed with slow deliberation, a change from the frantic groping of earlier, their sweat-slicked bodies pressed together tightly. At last, he gently rolled her over onto her stomach, parting her legs and stroking her as her breathing quickened again. Holding her hips, he slid deeply into her, rocking against her as she leaned back against him. They found a slow, building rhythm, creaking the leather sofa underneath them, Sophie’s tiny moans met with Eliot’s soft panting. He came with clenched teeth, buried inside her, and she followed him down, the two of them lost in the moment.

He slumped down next to her, breathless, and she tucked his head against her shoulder, fingertips wound in his hair. Her voice was remarkably steady as she said, “If you dare try to tell me that this was lovely, but we must never do it again, I swear to Christ I’ll find an imaginative way to kill you, Eliot Spencer.”

“I...I don’t think I have that kind of restraint, to be honest. Even though I’m pretty sure it’s a bad idea.”

“In my younger, more reckless days, I’d tell you that that’s exactly why we should keep doing it. But now, honestly...I think we’re adults. And I think we can make this work. Play fair with me, Eliot, that’s all I ask. That’s all I’ve ever asked. And if it doesn’t work, we can have a nice screaming fight, and I’ll throw something at you, that will miss by a mile, and we can have one glorious final romp and shake hands like gentlemen. Fair enough?”

He stood up, and tugged her up with him, so they stood facing one another in the dim light from a nearby streetlamp. “I don’t know how good at this I’ll be, Sophie. But for you, I’ll try. And if it doesn't work, we part as friends." He smiled down at her, cupping her cheek in his hand. "C’mon, let’s go wash up." He led her down the hall to his tiny bathroom.

After a long, hot shower, with much inappropriate sudsing and some giggles, Sophie slid between the sheets of Eliot’s bed, and curled up next to him, her dark hair spread out like a fan on the pillow. As he turned off the bedside light, she said to him, softly, “By the way...my real name is...”


End file.
